A coupon is a ticket or document that can be exchanged for a financial discount or rebate when purchasing a product or service. Customarily, coupons are issued by manufacturers or by retailers of consumer packaged goods, to be used in retail stores as a part of sales promotions. They are often widely distributed through mail, magazines, newspapers, the Internet, etc. They may be delivered directly from the issuer (i.e., retailer or manufacture) or delivered indirectly via a third party mobile marketing service, such as web sites that offer printable coupons or digital coupons on behalf of multiple manufacturers or retailers. Brick-and-mortar merchants (i.e., merchants operating physical stores) use coupons and discount offers as promotion to motivate consumers to visit and shop at their stores. Recent research studies suggest that consumers are significantly sensitive to the travel distance required for them to redeem a coupon/discount offer.
Location-aware service (LAS) is an information service, accessible using mobile devices through the mobile phone network and using the built-in ability of the mobile device to track the geographical position of the user. Examples of LAS include services to discover the nearest banking cash machine, personalized weather services, location-based games, etc.